Manor Skelm
Image by Gustave Dore
[Sponsored by @mr-w-rambles, who was inspired by my fairy tale hags and lodge skelm to propose a skelm based on Bluebeard. As someone who read Angela Carter in college and is fascinated by the gender roles explored in fairy tales, I leapt at the challenge. As someone who loved The Bloody Chamber, there was no way I would write a Bluebeard without said bloody chamber getting some mechanical exploration. The august raiment ability is based on the artistic trope of emphasizing Bluebeard's wealth through fine clothing (often Orientalist in design). The flavor text and SLAs were influenced by other "husband with a secret" gothics, such as Gaslight, Rebecca and even The Screaming Skull.
Since the Bluebeard MO is isolating and killing women one at a time, the manor skelm might be tricky to use in group play. Presumably, the PCs would be in the role of investigating the mystery of recurring disappearances, rescuing the current wife before it's too late, and so forth. Or the stats could just be used for a lordly villain without maneuvering a victim into an excuse to be killed happening to anyone on screen, or happening to the PCs without the marriage angle. And of course, as with any monster involving explicitly misogynistic violence, make sure your players are okay with that as a plot element.
If you'd like to join @mr-w-rambles in sponsoring monsters, see bonus kaiju and monster girls, or just chip in a few bucks to help out, join the Creature Codex Patreon here!]
Manor Skelm CR 4 LE Monstrous Humanoid This large man is clad in fine garments and would be quite handsome if not for the bulging of his eyes and the faint suggestion of horns beneath his hat. His blue-black beard is magnificent and well maintained.
All skelms are misogynists as a matter of course, but manor skelms may be the most focused on their misogyny specifically. A wealthy man who murders his wife in a rage over some real or perceived slight may transform into a manor skelm and become obsessed with the idea of repeating that violence over and over again. Manor skelms are serial killers who prey on their romantic partners, courting women, whisking them to their beautiful estates, giving them a series of rules and commands, and then killing them when they inevitably fail. The most common game a manor skelm plays is to keep one room of their shared home off limits—this is in reality their charnel lair, a trophy room that maintains their victims in a freshly killed state rather than allowing them to decompose. Anyone who enters this room is marked with a supernatural bloodstain, allowing the manor skelm to detect their guilt, whereupon they are then slain and added to the collection of bodies.
Manor skelms are very charming, which allows them to both woo prospective victims and to elude the suspicion of authorities. They flaunt their wealth; as bait to attract desperate women into their clutches; as social lubricant to buy off investigators; and as literal armor. The costlier and more ornate the garb of a manor skelm, the more physically protected they are from harm. As befits any wealthy man, manor skelms often have large staffs to take care of their households. Most of the servants know nothing of their master’s inhuman nature or violent deeds, and the ones who do are intimidated into silence, recruited into the skelm’s web of cruelty, or simply disposed of. The typical victim of a manor skelm is a woman without strong ties to family, faith or other safety networks. If their victim tries to share their suspicions, the manor skelm can use magical tricks to make her seem untrustworthy, even crazy.
Manor skelms have very small horns as a rule, which they lord over other skelms. They often assume unusual hair or eye colors in their humanoid guises, the better to attract the eye and strike up a conversation with a prospective target.
